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Social Indicators
Author(s) -
Owens Helen
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
australian economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8462
pISSN - 0004-9018
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8462.1976.tb00978.x
Subject(s) - welfare , national accounts , gross domestic product , economics , measures of national income and output , public economics , product (mathematics) , social welfare , macroeconomics , political science , mathematics , market economy , law , geometry
This article was prepared by Helen Owens of the Institute research staff. Until the mid‐1960's it was generally accepted that gross national product provided not only a measure of economic performance but also a useful overall indicator of some aspects of human welfare. The limitations of GNP with respect to most non‐market phenomena were well recognised but the implicit assumption was made that the unmeasured aspects of welfare were positively related to changes in income as recorded in national accounts statistics. However, in the last decade or so, growing recognition of social costs and problems asociated with material advancement has led economists and other social scientists to look for new approaches to the measurement of social ‘progress’. 1